I have not emphasized enough that blogging can reach potential clients because more and more consumers use internet searches to find what they are looking for.

The Study

The study found that 31% of consumers use search engines, and 30% of consumers use the old-fashioned yellow or white pages. In the previous year, consumers used print sources 33% of time, versus using internet search engines 30% of the time. Even assuming a margin of error, it would appear the trend is moving towards internet searches.

The study also found that consumers most often contact a business over the phone (39%), followed by in-person visits (32%), and contacting the business online (12%).

Although the study says print advertising is still widely used, I have talked to many attorneys who pay tens of thousands of dollars for yellow page ads, yet see little results. Surely it must work for some attorneys, otherwise they would not pay for it. Internet marketing can cost just as much, but you can also efficiently market your firm for much less money.

Reaching Out Online

Simple concept, if more people are trying to find businesses online, make it easy for them to find you online. Create a decent website and a blog. Creating a blog is just one way to increase your search results and drive traffic to your website. If you maintain your blog regularly, all of those new posts are adding more content for Google to find when users enter search terms. Of course, like all other web material, your posts should have good content.

One of the advantages to blogs over static web pages is that posts can be highly targeted and deal with timely topics. Unlike static pages, which need constant revisions, posts do not need to be altered or deleted (unless they are just flat wrong).

People are increasingly their online searches for businesses–so make it easy for them to find you.

Randall sues debt collectors that harass consumers, assists consumers with student loan issues, and defends consumers in debt collection lawsuits. He is also an attorney instructor at the University of Minnesota Law School.

8 responses to “Potential Clients Will Find Your Law Blog”

Sound advice, Randall. Law firms, like most other businesses, can benefit immensely from blogging. I’ve always considered good content the best form of SEO, and blogging affords you the opportunity to publish original, targeted content on a regular basis. If someone gets injured in NYC and Googles “personal injury lawyer NYC,” your NYC-based law firm has a much better chance of getting found if you blog every day on personal injury related topics. That’s not all it takes, but it’s one effective tool you should be adding to the mix.

I own an online publicity firm that specializes in professional blogging. We hadn’t worked with a law firm until recently, when a partner at the firm was so frustrated with poor Google AdWords and SEO campaigns that he was willing to give blogging a shot.

Before we signed a contract, I did my keyword research and studied how hundreds of other firms were handling their online marketing. I was shocked at how many buy into generic, cookie-cutter approaches — from template websites and aggregated news content to blogs that may as well have been written by robots.

Law firms that actually try to engage and publish original, interesting content regularly can surpass the competition in search position.

Thanks for your post! I agree that a website and blog improve the odds that a potential client will find you.

Even if the potential client comes across your name first through some other means – whether it is a word-of-mouth referral or a phone book ad – it is likely he or she will still use the Internet to research your credentials further. Having a website and blog filled with helpful information is a way to showcase your expertise. And that Internet presence could be the linchpin that ultimately lands a new client.

While I tend to agree that it’s useful to have a blog if you are actually interested in commenting on some aspect of the law and enjoy writing, if that is not the case — i.e., if you are just doing it because you have accepted that blogging is yet another, seemingly-mandatory marketing tool — then why bother? With something on the order of 133 million blogs out there (as indexed by Technorati — presumably there are more) there is already an overabundance of information out there. There is, of course, always room for more good content, but I’m not convinced that it necessarily leads to more business for lawyers — unless and until your site is so popular that you are regarded as something of a pundit in your area of expertise. That happens infrequently, it seems, and when it does happen it is the result of a long-term project that has to be something of a labor of love. If you don’t enjoy it, don’t do it, because you have to realize that all the CFOs and GCs out there are not trolling the blogs looking to add new lawyers to the ranks of those that serve their interests.

I think that the most important thing for you to do on your site or blog is to give good and useful information. In the past week alone I’ve had four new clients come on board with me who all told me that they loved my website because of how much information I had on it and how it helped them with their decision.

You can’t just put up worthless information and hope to get clients. They will see right through that. For instance on my Memphis personal injury law website/blog I try to teach injury and accident victims what to do after they’ve been hurt in a car wreck or other accident. I’m not trying to sell them. I’m not trying to tell them how great I am. I’m trying to give them helpful information that will benefit them. Give, give, give and give more. If you’re only doing it for yourself then you may never reap the rewards that true givers often receive.

As a caveat to that being said, I’m actually in the process of reworking my site to add a ton more information. So if you happen to take a look at it soon after this post, be gentle – we’re going through some big changes right now.

I agree with what David Reich said but want to take it a step further. Try drilling your local keywords down to the community level. Lets say you’ve got a major community in your area that fits with your client demographic profile then you can use a keyword geared to that community. In the Tampa, Fl market it would be the difference between “criminal law attorney in Tampa” and “criminal law attorney in Westchase”. Westchase is a large community in the city of Tampa. The other thing you need to do is have analytics installed on your website so you can get data on the actual keywords people are using to get to your site. There is a difference in someone searching for “”criminal law attorney in Tampa” and “criminal law attorney + Tampa” or even “Tampa Fl criminal law attorney”. Getting this right will help you get blog or website ranked for local search where you might need it most.

Providing great info on you site and blog is good, but the true meaning of reaching your clients is getting in their minds and figuring what they must be feeling for someone to find a website. Understanding and meeting their needs is going to be the best step towards recovery for them, and then to take steps to gain whatever was a loss to them. Recovery is a long hard road to walk, but having someone there by your side and understanding their needs will lead to a better recovery.